Podcast: March Madness of Insurance Mascots Goes Viral

We had a blast creating and running the March Madness of Insurance Mascots game. We didn’t expect it to go viral (who does?) so it was incredibly exciting to watch and experience when it did. If you didn’t catch it on our Facebook page, it was a 16 team single elimination bracket that pitted insurance mascots against each other. Voting was as simple as commenting on the photo and we found there are very loyal and impassioned fans out there.

The mascots were a mixture of insurance companies geared towards independent agents and the national direct writers. A typical game garnered an average of 60 votes and 10 shares until Game 8 was played between Allstate’s Mayhem and Farmers’ Professor Burke. After posting the link to the game on each of their Facebook pages, Mayhem shared it with his 1.5 million followers and it went viral with over 1,700 votes and 367 shares.

Caring is sharing so we want to share a few things we’ve learned:

• Ensure the timing of the promotion is relevant. Although bracketing is fun all year round and with other sports, it worked best in line with the NCAA’s March Madness.
• It helps when someone with a larger audience gets involved and shares it to their base. The mascots shared it with their fans who in turn shared it with their network.
• Participation was easy – Comment on the photo to vote.

Enjoy the podcast. We can’t wait to play again next year.